Never Meet Your Heroes
by delesyeuxbleues
Summary: Piers Nivans has managed to locate Chris Redfield 2 months after the BSAA's involvement in the Edonian Civil War. The man he has found is one he can no longer recognize...or idolize. Rated M for language and dark themes.


_February 26, 2013 _

_Novi Beograd, Serbia_

_22:28_

Piers Nivans can't decide which is itchier – his neck, or the finger on the armed guard with his pistol raised to Chris Redfield. A few yards away, just outside a door nearly off its hinges, the guard is spouting off what were probably obscenities. The sniper's and his captain's American ears are unfamiliar with the language. But from the man's tone and the raised gun, his attitude can't be mistaken for anything but hostile. The harsh stream of guttural vowels and trilled consonants doesn't help either.

From behind the corner of a brick-walled shop, Piers watches – his heart racing, surrounded by a cage of a thousand tingling daggers. He keeps scratching his neck – a nervous tick. But he doesn't notice that as he trains his sights on the man and his captain.

"What the hell are you doing?" He mutters as much to himself as to Chris.

Chris Redfield seems unfazed. He just continues to stand facing the grunt, his military-trained posture seemingly forgotten.

_ He has to be drunk._ _Who other than an idiot would put themselves in this situation? _And Piers dares not call his Captain an idiot.

"Tell me that again, but in English, please." Chris slurs

The man's face contorts into the reddest mask of vein-popping rage.

Chris still looks nonplussed. He takes a couple steps forward. The man stops his advance with a palm to the shoulder. He still dons the mask, his eyes boring into Chris.

"Look pal, don't have time for this bullshit. Lemme through."

The man pushes him back and starts to advance.

From Piers' vantage point, he couldn't see before how the hulking mass of military fatigues and combat boots loomed over Chris by at least half a foot. And Chris certainly wasn't short of frame either.

The man has the barrel of the pistol point blank at Chris' chest. His angry, unintelligible speech flirts with the fastest of speed limits.

Chris grabs the barrel.

Piers gasps, "that idiot-"

A gunshot rings out.

The cage of daggers shrinks. Each one impales Piers' heart. He bolts forward from behind the brick corner. But stops.

Chris and the man are still standing. The man has taken an elbow to the face. Both he and Chris clutch the gun. They wrestle the direction of the barrel away into the alleys, the brick buildings, the pavement and the sky. The man throws a punch. It whiffs. Chris counters. He causes another round to fire off. A woman shrieks, out of sight. A series of doors slam shut. Faces disappear behind darkened windows.

Piers runs and ducks back behind his corner, away from the violent dance. Peering back into the street, he sees Chris devour a gloved fist.

Blood trickles from the Captain's nose. And yet he grins. He butts heads with the man, causing him to stagger backward. For a second the man looks surprised. He slips his mask right back on. But he is quickly astonished once again. Chris now has the gun. He still grins...if a toothy, bloody grimace can be called that.

"Do I have to go through this every fuckin' time!?" His tenor echoes through the street.

The man says nothing. His surprised expression is now scornful.

Chris cocks the 9 mil, aligning his sight with the guide on the barrel. "If you're gonna answer me, now's the time! And in English, too!"

_He wouldn't…!_

Chris may be inebriated, but at that range, Piers was sure he couldn't miss.

The barrel kisses the man's forehead – Chris is now the one with the itchy finger.

Piers throws a foot up, trying to move forward as fast as he can, "Don't-!"

"Don't you think you've caused enough trouble?" A thin man stands in the now unguarded doorway. He is weaselly with shaggy chestnut hair and a striped cream suit that has apparently outlived Disco. His eyes are blue, but small, beady.

"Andrej, did you forget to clue in your guy here, again?"

"And what if I did? You seem to be having fun crushing in his skull. And to be honest, I was kind of hoping you'd win. Oh, poor Branko."

Chris scoffs as Branko's scornful face intensifies. Chris returns it, then slugs the man directly. Andrej's guard is down for the count.

"Just get me my goddamn money."

Andrej nods and motions Chris to the door. The duo disappears, leaving the unconscious Branko to rest on a bed of cobble stones, the trash of the street as his pillow.

Piers reels behind his corner. The daggers no longer pierce his thumping heart. His pulse slows as well. It reminds him vaguely of his first car, a 1973 Cadillac which he'd attempted to fix himself. When he'd gotten it to start, the motor sounded like a rhythm-less drummer in an amateur rock band.

He's relieved to have found Chris. And surprised. Chris Redfield had eluded Umbrella's top operatives for the better part of 5 years after 1998. The Sniper should've been proud that he had succeeded where Umbrella had failed. And only in a matter of months. But he remembers that he owes a huge part of it to luck...and the passport that Chris had left behind at the Emergency Room back in Edonia.

Piers reaches into his side pouch and pulls out the document.

Piers had paced alongside his Captain's bed for four days following the attack by Ada Wong. He slept, occasionally, on a very uncomfortable chair. Keaton and Reid had tried to get Piers to leave the room to eat something. On the third day, they refused to bring Piers anymore food. He ate nothing that day. On the morning of the fourth day, however, they knew they succeeded when they found their sniper wolfing down baked beans and grilled meat in the hospital cafeteria. Their victory was short-lived, however, when Piers returned to the room. Chris' bed was empty. He nearly threw back up his feast when he saw the fallen IV stand and broken window. Chris took nothing with had managed to somehow make it out of Edonia, but he wasn't going to be crossing the Serbian border anytime soon. Not without his travel papers.

That's of little comfort to Piers as he flips the passport open. He sees a man he no longer recognizes.

"What happened to you?" he whispers to the photo.

But Piers knew the answer already. Chris Redfield was a man well acquainted with loss. From his parents, to pretty much everyone in his hometown save for his sister, Claire – luckily. He nearly lost his best friend Jill. And he now just lost so many fellow BSAA agents...and Finn.

Piers' relief dips into sadness. Loss is supposed to heal with time. But for a man who keeps losing more and more...It can only be a matter of time before it breaks him. Piers didn't want to think about that anymore.

The young sniper was thankful that his job required great amounts of focus. Executing long range shots with his anti-material rifle left little time to dwell on things.

_Why would anyone fuse a giant worm with a __giant __bat?_ No clue, just secure your vantage point. _Why __does__ viral warfare only benefit rich assholes and narcissistic scientists?_ Doesn't matter, just get your target's forehead in your cross hairs..._Why did I have to be such __a__ dick to Finn that d__ay?_ Forget about it. Just pull the trigger.

Piers slips the passport back into his pouch. While doing so, he feels the lump caused by the bottle of chloroform he'd almost left behind earlier.

He'd been genuinely insulted as Reid reminded him to take it. He'd been so sure that he could simply walk up and talk to Chris as soon as he'd found him. With the bond they'd formed in the 3 years since they'd met, he was so sure that they'd have their captain back and clad in BSAA issued attire in a matter of hours. Then they'd charter a bird off to another undead body-horror freak show."You never know," Reid had said as he handed Piers the bottle. Piers hated to admit being wrong.

Piers' face grows hot. He touches it to the brick wall. He takes comfort, not in its roughness, but in the coolness caused by the night air. He struggles to breathe calmly. Piers' chest begins to rumble. The garage band drummer returns for an encore. The thought doesn't help slow Piers' breathing in the slightest. He's hyperventilating when realizes his sadness is ascending into rage.

_W__h__en should __I t__ell__the team that I've __found __Captain Redfield__? _ No vantage point

_H__ow do I tell them __that he's__ now a common thug? _Nothing in the cross hairs.

_And why __does it hurt so much to knock him down from the that damn pedestal and see him as just any other man capable of failing? _Trigger's jammed.

The young sniper slams his fist into the wall.

_ Where will he land in his fall from grace? And what will I do if I can't catch him?_

Piers punches the wall again. "Goddammit..."

"Hey kid, that wall piss you off or something?"

Piers jumps.

Chris is standing only a few feet away. He's a looming shadow cast by the dim streetlights. His frame leans, threatening to fall. The smell of _Rakija _stings Piers' nose. Chris is flipping through his wad of cash as if to shuffle for a round of poker.

_When did he? - shit!_

"The hell are you doing there, kid?"

Piers continues to stare.

"Hey, can you understand me?"

Piers nods. _He doesn't recognize me._

"Good," his captain almost belches.

Piers' watches as Chris turns his back. _He doesn't recognize me._

The older man slips the stack of bills into his pocket and begins to stagger off towards a dark alley. Piers is sure even a small stone can topple him.

"Better get lost. Trouble comes out at this hour."

_Why doesn't he recognize me? _The sniper feels the onset of tears, but squeezes them back into his tear ducts. He plants his feet. He lets air enter his lungs with a hiss.

"Does that include you?"

Chris stops and turns, "You bet. And you don't want any of it."

"Who would?"

Chris manages a steady gait towards Piers. Their faces are only inches apart. Chris' features are corrupted into a bloody and bruised scowl. "You trying to start something, kid?"

Piers' glance doesn't leave the ground. He swallows the lump in his throat,"It's Piers."

"What?"

"My name is Piers."

"Is that supposed to mean something?"

Piers tightens his fists. He lets his eyes meet the other man's, "It should, Chris."

The older man's eyes widen.

"How do you know that name?" He asks soberly.

"Because, I am Piers Nivans from Unit 29 of the BSAA, North American Branch."

"No..."

And you are Chris Redfield, captain of Unit 29 in the BSAA-."

"No."

"-North American Branch."

"No!"

"Chris."

"Shut up!

"Chris, please!"

"Don't fucking call me that!"

"Captain-!"

Chris grabs Piers by his shirt collar, easily lifting him.

"Listen here, you fuck. Chris Redfield is dead. _Fucking_ dead! He's been dead since 1984 and he's died too many goddamn times over since: He died in 1998 with Raccoon City; He died in 2006 with Jill Valentine. In 2009, he almost thought he'd make it. But now, he's died for the_ last fucking time_ in Edonia-"

Chris chokes back the tears.

"So hear me and fucking _get this_...He's dead, and he's never coming back!"

Chris' grip has loosened. Piers' boots touch the ground once more. Chris collapses onto the cobblestones. He's a pile of a man, doused in liquor and tears. Piers no longer fights back his own salty streams.

"I know."

Chris still weeps.  
"I know that...you're – he's gone."

Piers brushes away his tears with his sleeve.

"Chris Redfield, the man I respect and admire...He is gone and he is never coming back. And it wasn't fair for me to try to bring him back from the dead. "

The sobbing quiets.

"That's exactly what the BSAA is fighting. Before the BSAA, I was shown a world of horrors with very little chance of survival. But the BSAA showed me a world of hope and possibilities. And that was all in huge part to Chris Redfield. He was...is a hero. He died a hero."

Chris' face has lifted from the ground, a teary and bloody watercolor portrait. Piers rifles through his pouch. He feels his hand brush over the lump caused by the bottle of chloroform. He continues to rummage on until he pulls out a small blue writing tablet.

Or so Chris thinks.

Piers hands it to the man.

It's Chris's travel papers, his passport.

"Chris Redfield was, is, and always will be my hero. And I love him."


End file.
